Open Access in Biomedical Research (September 2012)

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2018-02-01

Summary:

"In recognition of the importance of open access to the biomedical sciences, the European Medical Research Councils (EMRC) of the European Science Foundation (ESF), at the instigation of its Core Group member Professor Josef Syka of the Czech Science Foundation and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (GAČR and AVČR), launched an activity to investigate what, if any, steps EMRC could usefully take to improve the open access landscape in the biomedical field across Europe.... The many valuable inputs from participants made it clear that the current model for accessing biomedical research is far from ideal and that all research stakeholders (funding agencies, publishers, research performing institutions, research libraries and learned societies) need to work together to shift to an open access model in the field. However, a number of potential hurdles, discussed in this briefing, remain to be overcome.... [T]his briefing makes a number of recommendations: 1. There is a moral imperative for open access: research papers should be made freely available to all to read, use and re-use, with appropriate acknowledgement, in order to maximise the value of biomedical research, build on the body of knowledge, accelerate the process of discovery and improve human health. 2. Individual agencies must work together to raise awareness of the moral imperative for open access: agencies and organisations that fund and perform research, libraries, publishers and researchers must work in concert to raise awareness of the moral imperative for open access publishing. National, European and international partnerships are the basis for the successful achievement of open access to research outputs. Specific actions that different agencies need to undertake in order to move towards this goal are outlined in this briefing. 3. All research stakeholders should work together to support the extension of Europe PubMed Central into a Europe-wide PubMed Central: in order to facilitate discoveries and innovation in biomedical research, research stakeholders should collaborate to establish a Europe-wide repository in biomedicine as a partner site to the US equivalent PubMed Central. The recently rebranded Europe PubMed Central represents a valuable means to achieving this goal, provided that the diversity of European partner mandates and policies can be integrated...."